


Love

by pennflinn



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Married Life, One Shot, Romance, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21576970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennflinn/pseuds/pennflinn
Summary: In short, it wasn't anything he could have predicted.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Iris West
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	Love

It wasn’t the way she looked at him, though he knew that was something he couldn't resist. Dark lashes over dark eyes, sometimes playful and sometimes rimmed with exhaustion but always magnetic. It wasn’t her hair, which she’d only recently begun to wear in its natural curls. Ringlets and coconut scent. Memories of tangles, discovered in the unlikeliest of places. Counter full of pink bottles, breathing pomegranate and vanilla and sea breeze into the room.

  
It wasn’t in the sway of her hips as she walked, or the way her bare stomach curled against his. Not the fingers pressing divots into his neck, gentle pressure like all of her best ideas.

  
Not her ideas, either, though they captivated him. Sometimes in line at the grocery store, which they still visited at normal human speed during the Sunday rush, because that was the way of things, wasn’t it? Sometimes in the middle of a crisis. Sometimes on the couch in sweatpants during a commercial break, like it was the most natural thing in the world to propose a story idea about Central City’s housing crisis while attractive people ate the new flavor of Doritos on TV.

  
She had a way of making people better, just by speaking with them. Of flashing a smile that filled you with confidence — even if the world wasn’t, she was with you.

  
And unshakeable bravery. Not unshakeable doubt, but the courage to face that doubt even with a face wet with tears and tell predestination that she was still standing. She would not go quietly into that dark, dark night. Stars and cosmic energy stuck to her skin.

  
It wasn’t that, but it easily could have been. Not the surprise theatre tickets at Christmas, nor the way she turned up the radio and danced after her football team won, nor the quiet round of her shoulders as she sat with tea in bed, alternately reading paperback romance and biographies of great women.

  
Or maybe it was all of that, but —

* * *

It was the way she closed her fingers around his hand even when she thought he was sleeping, and how choosing her everyday, and her choosing him, made the harsh starlight of eternity feel just a little softer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading; I really appreciate it. Comments are welcome! Much love to you all.  
> -Penn


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